Black Coffee
Why is there a picture of coffee? What does this have to do with anything? Trust me, it will make sense by the end. It is my most favorite liquid though, a nice black coffee.
3-in-1
Around the shop here, I am constantly oiling tools and other small things I am working on and here are some of my favorites for that; although they are lightweight household oils but nonetheless mighty handy to have around and of course several of them here are the ubiquitous 3-in-1 oil. Here's a little quiz for you. Can anyone tell me without looking at a package, what the 3 in one stands for? It's printed on every can but go ahead and think about it and see if you can come up with it and you might not at first. I first learned about it riding an old trolley car where they advertise right above the seats, I forget which one - CT Electric Railway or Shoreline or somewhere. Anyway, go ahead and look it up, if it doesn't come to you right away. They come with a little nozzle on the top with an easy on/off cap and my father had an old one around that was in its original glass bottle. If you can get your hands on one of the Starrett brands, that is a keeper, but really they are all pretty good no matter the brand. I have added some to a small syringe to get at small items with.
Penetrating Oil
Everyone loves the penetrating oils, in fact, I think I have seen PB Blaster on an insulated mug somewhere. Liquid Wrench is another popular brand, but, if I had to choose, the PB Blaster really works pretty well. Of course, there is a ton of handmade solutions around too. I have seen one that is better outside and not in an enclosed area, and that is a 50/50 mix of acetone and either power steering fluid or transmission fluid, which works to remove rust from old tools or pouring on rusted engines, letting them soak in it a day or so, and using a breaker bar with some patience to free them up. Of course, there is the old joke, if that penetrating oil is so good, how's it staying in the can? If you can get your hands on Kano Laboratories KROIL, or Aerokroil in the orange cans, snag it. I like this one even more than the PB Blaster. Now, if something has been sitting outside in the weather here in New England, let's say for more than a few days, none of these are going to help you, in my opinion, but you are free to have a go at it. The rust forms a seal, so no matter what the clever package marketing says, these oils aren't meant for seasoned rust.
Tapping Oils
My favorite cutting oil, for the times when I am tapping, has got to be Boyer's Chemical Lard Oil Compound. This is sulfurized, so other than the horrible smell that you can't get off your hands for 3 days :( and being a little tough to find, it can't be beat.
Lathe Tapping Oil
I do a lot of cutting on the lathe, where I love this CMD Extreme Pressure Oil that comes in a tube.
It's primarily used for lathe centers because it doesn't dissipate. It is made to withstand very hard pressure and is far better than any other thick oils. I do not have much on hand here, and it only comes in a little "toothpaste tube" size of about 4 oz and will run you about $20. These shouldn't be confused with tapping fluids - of which I have many, for different reasons. Tap into those another day. ^_^
Anaerobics - LOCTITE
Some of my very favorite liquids are the LOCTITE products. Other companies make similar products as well but, like when you say hey give me that Crescent Wrench, I am going to use the brand name "LOCTITE" rather than calling it bonding adhesive. Yeah, that's right, Crescent Wrench is a brand name. You can look that up to, if you are so inclined. As far as I know, the patents for LOCTITE were all here in the USA, but the company may be foreign owned these days, or it is still in this country. Not sure. LOCTITE is "anaerobic" which means, in the absence of oxygen, so that means it will setup, or harden in the absence of oxygen. I bring this up because you might get a new bottle and notice it is half full, wondering if you got jipped, and like the bag of 5 potato chips, there is a reason the bottle has got an airspace in it. If they filled the bottle, there wouldn't be any oxygen in there and the whole thing would harden. Now they make a variant of this in just about anything you can imagine. I particularly like the one for Bearing Mounts and the Threadlocker which the Permatex brand makes a Red one of. They put a dye in it, but good to know, the Red one is always the High Strength formula and will take heat to remove it. Some of it is so strong that, even two wrenches would cause the fastener to break so you might have to heat it. It removes the need for lock washers before it seals the joint, so don't get moisture in there. That's another use for it actually, you'll be a happy camper to go read up on the different variants, colors and uses on their respective websites, LOCTITE or Permatex.
Coffee Grounds and Dish Soap
And, back to my black coffee for a minute. In just about every garage, hobby shop, machine shop, you will see a tub of Orange Pumice hand cleaner, which is the standard for sure. Somewhere, sometime along the way, it was decided your hands needed to smell like this orange oil. Something I learned, back in my days of working at the old "Hamilton Standard Corporation" was to use a mix of used coffee grounds and your basic dollarstore dishsoap. We had a large pump container of the dishsoap, and a bucket o'coffee grounds, you'd grab a handful of grounds, pump the soap onto your hands and scrub up, then rinse off. You can spend your money on the orange pumice, I won't fault ya, it is the standard pretty much everywhere, but if you are brewing coffee as much as I am, the coffee grounds make a great pumice; and who doesn't love the smell of coffee?